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Friday, May 19, 2017

Consumer electronics maker
Panasonic on Thursday announced setting up of its first India Innovation Centre
(IIC) in Bengaluru, in association with TCS.

As part of this,
the company inaugurated the Centre of Excellence (CoE) at the TCS facility in
Whitefield.

The CoE will focus on open
innovation in the consumer electronic space and leverage the technology already
available with Panasonic India, and create geography-centric USPs to develop
innovative solutions, according to the company.

As part of this
collaboration, TCS will bring in industry know-how, innovation practices, and
create an ecosystem for Panasonic to shape the future product strategy, and
enable in digital transformation.

Paytm, the second largest
Internet company run by One97 Communications, on Thursday said that it has
raised $1.4 billion from SoftBank Group in one of the largest funding rounds by
a single investor in the Indian startup ecosystem.

Besides reducing
the burden of Chinese investment by Alibaba, Paytm will find the Japanese conglomerate
investment to expand its soon to be launched payments bank operations, expand
the user-base and unveil more financial products.

Commenting on the
development, Paytm Founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said they the company
is at an inflexion point in its journey. “This investment by Softbank and
support of the incredible entrepreneur Masayoshi Son is a great endorsement of
our team’s execution and vision. We believe that we have a great opportunity to
bring financial inclusion to half-a-billion Indians.”

Paytm plans to
invest about around Rs 10,000 crore over the next three to five years towards
enabling half-a-billion Indians to join the mainstream economy. “As a part of
this vision, the company will soon launch the Paytm Payments Bank,” it added.

Paytm, which has
around 230 million wallet-users, plans to launch its payments bank on May 23,
and will use the money to acquire new 500 million customers and launch a slew
of financial service products such as wealth management, deposits, and money lending,
among others.

Paytm has tied up
with several financial institutions including banks such as ICICI Bank and Bank
of Baroda and startups such as Capital First and Capital Float to lend to
customers on their behalf.

SoftBank Group
Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said that the company’s investment in Paytm is
line with the Indian government's vision to promote digital inclusion. “We are
committed to transforming the lives of hundreds of millions of Indian consumers
and merchants by providing them digital access to a broad array of financial
services, including mobile payments,” said Son.

SoftBank, which was
an early investor in Alibaba, has committed investments of over $10 billion in
India. It has pumped close to $2 billion into Indian startups like Snapdeal,
Ola and Housing.com in last few years. The company had to write off a
significant portion of that after the devaluation of those investments.

K7
Computing is offering a free tool to scan and remove files affected by WannaCry
ransomware, which has been causing widespread damage in the last few days.

No
other ransomware has exploited a very recently-discovered Microsoft security
flaw to spread this way. This makes WannaCry “the most deadly, successful
ransomware attack in history,” said J Kesavardhanan, Founder & CEO, K7
Computing, which provides anti-virus solutions.

K7 scanner

It is
important that clients know if the system is infected or not by WannaCry
ransomware. K7’s scanner scans the system to identify any WannaCry files and
removes them from the machine. The scanner also identifies and removes other
dangerous ransomware and bots. The free scanning and removal tool can be
utilised by individual users and companies, he told the Hindu group
journalists.

WannaCry
encrypts the data and offers the decrypt code for a price (a ransomware). It
exploits an MS17-010 vulnerability to distribute itself. It is possible that
WannaCry can arrive through email, either as a malware attachment or as a
malicious link. Effect of WannaCry could be far more than what has been
reported in the media, he said.

K7
Computing protects over 15 million customers globally against threats to their
IT environment. So far, due to WannaCry, nearly 7,000 machines have been
affected, he said.

International
anti-virus fraternity, including K7 Computing, is working towards creating a
decrypt code to retrieve data, which should be made available at the earliest.
In the current scenario, users will have to opt for a diagnostic and preventive
solution, he said.

WannaCry
can spread to all Windows OS prior to Windows 10 without the users’ knowledge.
Particularly vulnerable are those operating systems that have not been updated
with the latest patch/update. If allowed to launch, from a malicious email
attachment, WannaCry will encrypt files even on a fully-patched Windows OS,
whether Windows 10 or earlier, he said.

Times Centre for Learning Ltd (TCLL)., and XLRI-Xavier School of
Management, Jamshedpur recently signed an MoU to collaborate for promoting
quality Executive education in India.

This MOU marks the coming together of two potent forces for
professional education: the unmatched pedigree, history and reputation of
XLRI management education practice and TCLL’s physical presence, prowess in
delivering learning technology, strong corporate connections and commitment to
bringing excellence in education in India.

Commenting on the alliance, Anish Srikrishna, President, Times
Centre of Learning Limited, said, “We are delighted to be associated with XLRI,one of India’s top business schools. As TCLL continues to strive
towards its vision of providing excellent professional education to learners
across the age group, I am confident that this association will be a decisive
milestone. We are committed to maintain and exceed the high academic standards
that learners have automatically come to associate with XLRI and TCLL.”

Working professionals looking to upgrade their skill-set and move
up the corporate ladder can choose from the newly launched and upcoming programs
to be delivered in different modes that takes care of the busy life of today’s
working executives. Executive Certificate Program on Building Leadership
Competencies; focusing on creating space for learning around essential
competencies and values for leaders to be successful. The classes would be in
the form of live interactive lectures to be beamed directly to the
participants’ desktop/laptop. The applications are open for this course.

The Post Graduate Certificate Course in Business Analytics for Management
Decision (PGCBAMD) will
be a 12 month programme focused on building foundation as well as advanced
skills in the domain of business analytics. XLRI aims to create
specialists in the field of business analytics with in depth knowledge in the
various areas of analytics and who would be able to provide managerial insights
by analyzing the data which enables decision making. The application for the
course can be done from May 10, 2017.

The classes would be in the form of live interactive lectures to be
attended from TCLL centres spread across the country in all major cities.

Father E. Abraham, S.J. Director, XLRI said, “We continually
strive to build mutually beneficial partnership and look forward to this
engagement with TCLL. We hope that this alliance will provide great
opportunities for both XLRI and TCLL. We look forward to creating new
educational programs and identifying ways for our faculty to interact with
executives and other professionals in the region. This partnership will provide
terrific opportunities for sharing of ideas and developing solutions to many of
the world's key business issues.”

Thursday, May 18, 2017

At the Internet of Things World 2017, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd
and VMware announced a new collaboration to help simplify Internet of Things
(IoT) for bothinformation technology (IT) and operational technology (OT)
teamsby expanding end-to-end IoT solutions for industrial and
enterprise customers.

The companies will showcase the combination of the
SAMSUNG ARTIK Smart IoT platform withVMware Pulse IoT Center, offering asecure, enterprise-grade, end-to-end IoTinfrastructuresolution that allows IT and OT
teams to have complete control of their IoT use cases, from the edge to the
cloud. In addition, the companies will showcase theintegration of the
SAMSUNG ARTIK 530 withLiota (Little IoT Agent), a vendor-neutral open source software development kit (SDK)
developed by VMware, to help enterprise customers with the management,
monitoring and securing of their IoT implementation.

Today, enterprises struggle to embrace IoT because of the sheer
scale and complexity and security concerns. While SAMSUNG ARTIK Smart IoT
platform provides customers with all the upfront IoT hardware and
software they need to kick start their IoT developments, VMware will help
manage IoT infrastructure from the edge all the way to the cloud. The
combination will provide an end-to-end solution, including the hardware and
software components, security, cloud connectivity, building services, and
ability to monitor and manage the products over the product’s lifecycle.

“VMware and Samsung have a common goal to help enterprises speed
their time to market with their IoT initiatives,” said Mimi Spier, vice
president, IoT, VMware. “The SAMSUNG ARTIK Smart IOT platform delivers a
state-of-the-art IoT platform, and we are collaborating with Samsung to help
enterprises simplify their approach to deploying, managing, monitoring and
securing their IoT infrastructure and connected devices.”

“Enterprises around the world are looking to develop and deploy
IoT solutions to augment their product portfolio or expand into new markets.
Being able to monitor and manage these solutions across devices at enterprise
scale both on-premise and in the cloud is critical for successful rollouts,”
said Curtis Sasaki, vice president of ecosystems, Samsung Strategy and
Innovation Center. "We are developing a joint go-to-market plans to
address global enterprises looking for at scale, enterprise IoT
solutions. With mutual customers in key industrial and vertical segments,
we believe we can jointly address the growing development, deployment, and on
going management these customers are looking for."

Cab aggregator Ola today announced the launch of
its 'Progressive Web App' (PWA), a lightweight mobile website that offers
users, especially in smaller towns and cities, an app-like experience on simple
smartphones.

The
company claims that it requires a fraction of the data used by native apps.

Launched
together with Google at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco
today, PWA will enable the use of the Ola platform across hundreds of cities in
India and addresses a significant market opportunity for customers and driver
partners, the company said in a release.

It
said Ola becomes the first ride hailing app in the APAC region to use PWA
technology.

“As
the first ride-hailing app in the APAC region that is using PWA technology,
this represents an important development that will enable us to reach an ever
greater number of customers and driver partners in rural India,” Ola Co-Founder
and CTO Ankit Bhati said.

PWA
will overcome technological barriers to enter key markets and make Ola the
first ride-sharing platform in hundreds of cities across India, where there is
limited connectivity and a prevailing use of low-end smartphones, the release
added.

”...
It’s exciting to see Ola create their PWA, which will ensure their users have
an engaging experience from the very first moment,” Google VP Product
Management, Chrome Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, said.

After Chennai and Hyderabad, IT workers’ union
FITE has now decided to approach the labour commission in Bengaluru to submit a
petition to stop the alleged “illegal terminations” happening at Cognizant.

Forum
for IT Employees, or FITE, is a representative body of employees working in IT
companies and call centres. The body has already approached labour commissions
in Chennai and Hyderabad, alleging that the US-based firm is illegally
terminating thousands of employees by forcing them to resign. “We are all set
to approach the labour commission in Bengaluru to submit a petition to stop
illegal terminations happening in Cognizant,” FITE Vice President Vasumathi
toldPTI.

FITE
also plans to approach labour commissions in Kolkata and Pune.

While
Cognizant maintains that performance reviews are done to ensure that it has the
right employee skill sets, FITE is alleging that the highly-paid experienced
professionals are being replaced by those with lesser experience and lower pay.

Indian
IT players including Infosys and Wipro have initiated performance reviews, a
move that could see thousands of workers being shown the door.

While
IT companies have been one of the largest recruiters in the country, increasing
automation of processes is expected to lead to reduction in hiring in coming
years.

Vasumathi
said that depending on the outcome of conciliation meetings, a decision would
be taken on whether or not to approach the court to solve the vexed issue.

She
said FITE plans to hold a protest rally in Bengaluru, for which she is
galvanising support from affected employees through social media platforms like
Twitter and Facebook.

Karnataka
IT Minister Priyank Kharge had earlier asked the affected IT employees to lodge
a complaint with the labour department.

In
an interview withPTIrecently,
Kharge had said the government would look into the matter and provide legal
assistance if the affected or laid off employees approached it like their
counterparts had in Tamil Nadu.

The
labour commissions approached so far, have promised to take action, Vasumathi
claimed.

After
the Hyderabad meeting on May 11, Cognizant had sought two weeks’ time from the
Telangana labour department to come up with a reply on the said issue.

Vasumathi
alleged that there is no transparency in the hiring and appraisal activities of
the IT industry. “IT firms must be asked to submit white papers on these
processes to the government and to the public periodically,” she said demanding
that a tribunal be set up for knowledge-based industries.

Agencies

Paytm’s banking arm, Paytm
Payment Bank, on Wednesday received formal clearance from the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) to commence operations of its payments bank from May 23, and it set
a target of getting 200 million accounts by the end of this year.

In a statement, a Paytm spokesperson said the company is in the process of
launching Paytm Payments Bank on May 23. “We recently received approval from
RBI for Renu Satti to be the chief executive officer,” said the spokesperson.

One97 Communications Founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma was among the 11
applicants to receive RBI’s in-principle nod for a payments bank licence in
November 2015.

Sharma said that as per the directions of RBI, the company will be transferring
wallet business to the newly incorporated payments bank entity Paytm Payments
Bank.

Renu, who is vice president of business at Paytm, will take over as the chief
executive officer of Paytm Payments Bank from Shinjini Kumar, a former director
at consultancy firm PwC, who was hired in February to lead the payments bank.

Starting her career with One97 Communication, the holding company of Paytm, as
human resources manager, Renu has been with Paytm for nearly a decade working
on several projects, including Paytm marketplace and Paytm’s wallet business.

According to a company official, Paytm will allow its close to 218 million
wallet-users through a written request. Among this, those accounts which are
dormant for six months and having zero balance, will be made a part of it by
the company when a user places a request.

The company has set a target of 200 million accounts within 12 months of the
launch across current and savings accounts, and mobile wallets. Sharma has a
vision of taking it to half a billion accounts by 2020.

In an earlier interaction with DH, a Paytm executive had said that the company
is investing around Rs 350 crore to begin the journey in the payments business.
“We would like to make it into the second largest revenue stream of the parent
company. Our branches will have a maximum of two to three members, and it will
be mainly in the rural hinterland,” said the official.

Sharma — who along with his firm One97 Communications have together invested Rs
220 crore in Paytm Payments Bank to date — wants to make banking service
simple, easy to handle, transparent and penalty-free.

US tech giant Apple Inc said it is beginning initial
production of a “small number” of ‘iPhone SE’ in the city and start
shipping to domestic customers this month. “We are beginning initial production
of a small number of iPhone SE in Bengaluru. iPhone SE is the most popular and
powerful phone with a four-inch display in the world and we’ll begin
shipping to domestic customers this month,” Apple said here.

The Karnataka government
had in February announced Apple Inc.’s proposal to commence initial manufacturing operations
in Bengaluru. The phones will be manufactured by Wistron, a Taiwanese OEM
for Apple at Peenya in the city.Karnataka IT Minister
Priyank Kharge had on March 30 said that Apple would be ready to start
assembling high-end iPhones in the city in less than a month to boost its
chances of gaining a foothold in the fast-growing Indian market.

Local manufacturing is
expected to help Apple price its phones more competitively in India as it
currently attracts additional duty on imports. Apple had asked for several
tax and other incentives to enter India in the manufacturing sector.

The company has been
ramping up its efforts to expand its business in India, one of its fastest
growing markets. Apple is also keen on setting up retail presence in India
and has sought relaxation in local sourcing norms.

The company has also
announced the opening of ‘App Accelerator’ in Bengaluru, an initiative
that would provide support to Indian developers and enable them to transform
the design and performance of their apps on its mobile operating system iOS.

NGDATA, the
customer experience management solutions company, today announced that it has
signed a definitive agreement to acquire Eccella, a data management and
analytics consultancy based in New York City, with offices in London, UK and
Mumbai, India. Eccella is a leader in the field of data-driven consulting and
systems construction, and its team will join NGDATA as the company continues to
execute its strategy for aggressive North American and global growth.

Eccella works with organizations across the world to help
them develop, deploy and execute data-driven strategies. The acquisition allows
NGDATA to rapidly grow its presence in the UK and North America, and NGDATA and
Eccella customers will benefit from access to top data-focused talent and
expanded industry expertise. Partners of NGDATA will benefit from the combined
global infrastructure of two leading data companies supporting their efforts to
deliver solutions, and Eccella’s world-class partner ecosystem gives NGDATA the
opportunity to further build out its strategic technology partnerships.

“This is a strategic acquisition for NGDATA that will help
us solidify the team, the resources and the company infrastructure to
accelerate the pace of our growth. The addition of Eccella will greatly enhance
the value we bring to our clients and partners through the powerful combination
of the functionality of Lily Enterprise and Eccella’s deep domain knowledge,
partnerships and global industry expertise,” said Luc Burgelman, CEO of NGDATA.

“Expanding into the UK and bolstering its US presence is a
smart move that will contribute to and accelerate NGDATA’s aggressive growth
strategy worldwide,” said Michel Akkermans, Chairman of NGDATA. “Forward
thinking organizations are looking for technology that can help them turn
real-time insights into actionable intelligence, and this acquisition will make
it easier for NGDATA to meet that increasing demand on a global scale.”

The deal to acquire Eccella comes on the heels of the
October 2016 acquisition of Rednun,
a Netherlands-based company specializing in creating personalized and
data-driven video to optimize customer engagement. Prior to that, NGDATA
acquired ENQIO,
a European consultancy focused on data management, business analytics and
multi-channel campaign management. Overall, NGDATA achieved 75 percent
year-over-year growth in 2016, a year in which the company grew its workforce
by 50 percent.

“Luc and his team at NGDATA have a vision for the company
and its role in creating better data-driven customer experiences that is
impressive, ambitious and highly aligned with Eccella’s mission of building
data-driven companies. We are thrilled to join and play a key role in the
execution of that strategy,” said Gil Rosen, founder and president of Eccella.
“Making quick yet intelligent decisions based on real-time data is increasingly
critical, and we are in lock step with NGDATA’s approach to helping
organizations adapt by gaining actionable insights from data to drive their
business.”

“Eccella works with organizations across the world to help
them develop, deploy and execute their data-driven strategies by implementing
end-to-end, data-based solutions,” said Meitav Harpaz, CEO of Eccella. “For our
customers, NGDATA’s advanced data platform and team of data specialists
complete Eccella’s offering for the entire lifecycle of the data, from
strategy, through data preparation, data integration, data quality, mastering,
governance and visualization, all the way to advanced analytics and
insights."

PayPal, the global leader in online payments,
recently launched the third edition of Girls in Tech, a two-week
workshop that teaches young girls tech craftsmanship by introducing them to the
basics of programming. The girls, between 8 and 14 years of age, will learn
coding from industry experts and senior leaders from PayPal from May 15 –
31, 2017 at the PayPal tech centers in Chennai and
Bangalore. The program has seen participation from over 100 girls since its
inception in 2015.

An initiative born out of PayPal’s long-term
commitment to diversity, Girls in Tech is aimed at nurturing a
sense of passion and craftsmanship in future talent, with a focus on inspiring tomorrow’s women
in technology right from an early stage. During the workshop, participants will
not only get the opportunity to learn programs such as Scratch, Python, App
Inventor and Online Me, but will also shadow a PayPal engineer, work on solving
real-world issues through coding as well as be a part of self and personality
development workshops. These include theatre, photography, robotics, public speaking,
innovation, First Aid and emergency awareness, among others.

“Among high school students, a lower percentage
of girls are interested in pursuing a career in STEM compared to boys. Industry
reports also state that
women hold a disproportionately low share of most STEM undergraduate degrees,
earning just 20% of engineering degrees in 2014. At PayPal, we strongly believe
that initiatives such as Girls in Tech can change this trend by instilling a
love for technology in girls from an early stage,” says Guru Bhat, GM
Technology and Head of Engineering– PayPal. “We introduce the
participants to coding in fun, artistic ways to help them understand that
technology is full of surprises. After all, it is not mere coding or
engineering that we need in the industry at the moment - we need technology
craftsmen with the passion to strengthen the technology community in India.”

Manasa Vijayaraghavan, a
13-year-old participant said that she didn’t realize coding could be so much
fun. “This is my third year at the workshop and it has been a fabulous
experience. I am passionate about getting into robotics in the future and this
program has helped me get my foundation in place by teaching me the basics of
coding. I never thought I would be so interested in algorithms and flow charts,
but now I also plan on taking some online lessons and explore website
development. The sessions, games and activities here make it a very memorable
experience for me and I cannot wait to come back.”

Girls in Tech will be held at the PayPal campus
in Chennai between May 15 and 31, 2017 and at the PayPal tech center in
Bangalore between May 22-26, 2017.

IoT has
transformed the way communication service providers operate their business
today. This is a result of the huge amount of opportunities that IoT brings
along, not just in terms of the scale of investment for the businesses but also
the global impact it creates. Companies have started to identify the potential
of IoT and the data generated by it in reducing cost, improving supply chain
efficiencies, enhance product design and allow predictive maintenance.
Governments have also identified the transformational potential of this
technology and are looking at opportunities to reshape the industrial policies
in order to ensure that national industries maintain competitiveness and to
understand the level to which regulations need to be modified or adjusted to
address issues such as individual privacy and data security.

IoT emerged from
combination of technologies that have been undergoing continuous development in
the past decade. The combined effect of all these technologies fueled the
growth of the IoT domain. The use of the word "domain" symbolizes the
coming together of technologies and markets, which create exponential outcomes
that can be referred to as the "Fourth Industrial Revolution" by
some. Forecasts have suggested that the number of connected devices will be between
20 and 50 billion by the beginning of the next decade, with growth in business
in trillions of dollars.

The impact of
IoT will be felt across every aspect of life as we currently experience it. The
continued development of smartphones, tablets and wearable technology would allow
these devices to be the remote controls for the smart systems that will be
found in workplaces, homes and smart cars. Apart from all this, security is
also becoming more significant with the use of large number of unsecured IoT
devices.

In the
enterprise and industrial space, there is increased focus on the need for rapid
localized decision-making for devices that rely on constant information
feedback. Most of these decisions take place at the edge of the enterprise,
which is also where business interacts with the edge of the wide-area network. However
this comes with several challenges, in order to facilitate rapid
decision-making, the enterprise has to be able to identify, address,
authenticate, manage and secure a broad range of devices, many of which have
differing address mechanisms as well as communications and operating protocols.

By 2018, IoT is
expected to become mainstream for most cloud service providers (CSPs). This
would coincide with the timeframe when fully commercial market introductions of
3GPP standardized low-power wireless technologies are likely to occur. These
technologies cover a range of different use cases and can be deployed in
several different ways, either standalone or in-band using existing LTE
resource blocks that provide mobile operators with significant versatility to
address emerging IoT opportunities.

Weighted Ranking – Tier 1 CSPs by Use
Case

There are significant challenges that CSPs have to
face while serving the emerging IoT markets. First, it is not a single market
nor is it a static one which puts pressure on the CSP's network to be as
cost-effective and efficient as possible. In the case of industrial and
enterprise IoT, together with smart cities, the diversity of segments and
applications means that very few "one size fits all" solutions can be
developed and repeatedly deployed. In addition to this, MNCs expect specific
solutions deployed across all of their global operations, requiring the
solution to meet local requirements, and CSPs to handle all of the connectivity
and service interoperability challenges.

The virtual edge is a major focus for enterprise customers seeking to
understand the implications of fog computing on their operational performance,
network options and hardware requirements. In the same 2015 operator survey, discussed
their opinion on where IoT intelligence and analytics will reside within the
network (Figure 2), intelligence in the network definitely seems to be shifting
away from the center.

Overall, there
is a lot of optimism about the potential of IoT, but few CSPs have formed
concrete plans, and still fewer have implemented them. Analytics and
intelligence play a prime role going forward, both from a network operations
perspective and as a service to customers. However, the way in which this is
organized, serviced and delivered is still very fluid. 5G is very important
from a service provider perspective, as it is about seamless management of
heterogeneous networks across multiple frequencies, and obviously the efficient
handling of huge amounts of data traffic and storage. Network slicing, which
will be a key enabler of IoT, is in the early stages of implementation in LTE,
and is a core component of the 5G vision, since it enables "the many
services on one network" concept.

There is a
degree of wishful thinking going on in the mobile industry, with laggard
operators believing that they can go into IoT catch up mode at a later date,
and still win. If they do this, they will almost definitely miss the IoT window
of opportunity. One of the most significant requirements is for operators to
have a virtual core as a mechanism to accelerate IoT services. Too many of them
are still apprehensive about embracing this technology for IoT; consequently,
this will prove to be a barrier to their success. Many are trying different
approaches, including hybrid setup, and it appears now as if the two IoT
industry leaders – Vodafone and AT&T – are the only ones with a clear line
of sight.

If service
providers embrace virtualization – including the virtual core and virtual edge
– they will be able to move beyond connectivity and provide other services.
Other services could include managing the portfolios of devices, applications
and services going forward, or providing endpoint to cloud security, which most
enterprises don't have the capacity to do. Operators could also deliver
integrated analytics capability, and data management: where it is stored, how
it is tiered and what portions are transmitted. Additionally, there is the
possibility for end-to-end carrier-grade enhanced applications and tailored
capability.

Kathrein, a leading international specialist for reliable,
high-quality communication technologies, is expanding its activities in the
Asia-Pacific region. A new regional customer experience center has been opened
in Bengaluru, one of the biggest cities in India with an estimated population
of more than 10 million, in the presence of business partners, customers and
media representatives. The step is part of a strategy to strengthen Kathrein’s
presence in India and the Asia-Pacific region and to expand the solution and
service business worldwide.

“The location in Bengaluru is very important for our future growth
in the significant APAC region,” says Anton Kathrein, CEO of the Kathrein
Group. “At the new premises, we are showcasing our unique technology competence
and our full range of specialist solutions and services.” In addition, the new
center offers the opportunity to discuss trends and future topics such as 5G
and autonomous driving with customers.

“APAC is one of the most dynamic and vibrant regions in the world
regarding digital and mobile communication,” explains Ashwini Bakshi, who
steers Kathrein’s regional business from Singapore. “Our regional customer
experience center in Bengaluru offers expert support to our customers on topics
such as Industry 4.0 and vehicle connectivity, as well as the Internet of
Things, building digitalisation and smart cities.”

The location in central Bengaluru offers some 300 square metres of
space including a showroom for technology demos and training courses, and a
test and diagnostic lab. Special focus is put on developing software for
regional solutions and customer requirements. “Our new customer centre in
Bengaluru is a place where you can experience Kathrein’s quality and technology
leadership,” summarises Bakshi.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

The IET India IoT Panel announced the second edition of the
IoT India Congress 2017 - a two-day mega event on the Internet of Things that
will be held on September 14 - 15, 2017 in Bengaluru. Aruna
Sundararajan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology,
Government of India unveiled the event in New Delhi. N.Sivasailam,
IAS, Additional Secretary Department of Telecommunication also graced the
ceremony.

The IoT India Congress is conceptualized and designed by the
members of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (The IET) IoT Panel
– an independent and neutral visionary think-tank led by select industry
leaders. The panel envisions laying a solid foundation by supporting policy
makers, industry in the next step of adoption of IoT. The conclave aims to help
uncover new business opportunities, outcomes and revenue streams, help move
research forward to create newer technologies, discuss governance and policies
and thus create a roadmap for the evolving movement of IoT in India.

A panel discussion featuring senior leaders from the
industry was organized as part of the event. The discussion was moderated by Shekhar
Sanyal, Director and Country Head of the IET and the panelists discussed the
theme ‘Is IoT the platform India has been waiting for’.

The IoT India Congress 2017 will bring together the key
stakeholders across the value chain and industry vertical to discuss the impact
and potential of Internet of Things in various sectors like Healthcare,
Manufacturing, Smart Living and the New Technologies in IoT. The Congress will
have exhibition space, experience zone, award series and mentoring and advisory
sessions facilitated by veteran technologists.

Speaking about the launch of the event, Dr. Rishi
Bhatnagar, Chairman IET IoT Panel and and Chairman, Organizing Committee – IoT
India Congress 2017 and President, Aeris Communications said, “The
success of last year’s IoT India Congress has set the threshold in bringing
industry leaders together and spreading awareness on the impact of IoT in their
businesses.

As per Gartner report, 8.4 million devices will be connected in
2017, which is 31% more than last year. This is a phenomenal pace of growth of
IoT devices and the current need is for industries to be technologically
equipped to ride on this wave to be able to gain maximum out of it. This year
at the IoT India Congress, individuals across industries will share experiences
and discuss how IoT is impacting various technology and allied sectors."

Adding on, Shekhar Sanyal, Director and Country head
of the IET said, "As we move towards Digital India, it is great to
see industries coming together to enable each other in developing the digital
economy. We at the IET India IoT panel understand the need to create sentience
and increase participation from the stakeholders in the IoT value chain. Led by
the volunteers, the IET India IoT Panel is working to influence the future of
IoT, which will change the way we interact and do business. The IoT India
Congress, one of a kind as well as the largest platform for IoT in India aims
to bring together players from across the IoT ecosystem. We look forward
to seeing the industry leaders partnering with the IoT India Congress to
showcase how they are working towards the future of IoT”

AMDhas ushered in a new era for high-performance
server processors and the datacenter withEPYC. With its high core count, superior
memory bandwidth, and unparalleled support for high-speed input/output channels
in a single chip, EPYC aims to revolutionize the dual-socket server
market while simultaneously reshaping expectations for single-socket servers.

Previously codenamed “Naples,” this new family of high-performance products for
cloud-based and traditional on-premise datacenters will deliver the highly
successful “Zen” x86 processing engine scaling up to 32 physical cores2.
The first EPYC-based servers will launch in June with widespread support from
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and channel partners.

“With the new EPYC processor, AMD
takes the next step on our journey in high-performance computing,” said Forrest
Norrod, senior vice president and general manager of Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom Products. “AMDEPYCprocessors will set a new standard for
two-socket performance and scalability. As we demonstrated today, we see
further opportunity with the industry’s first no-compromise one-socket
solutions. We believe that this new product line-up has the potential to
reshape significant portions of the datacenter market with its unique
combination of performance, design flexibility, and disruptive TCO.”

Today, at the 2017 AMD Financial
Analyst Day, a single EPYC processor was shown exceeding the performance of a
competitive mid-range, two-socket / two-processor platform in a head-to-head
comparison.EPYC exceeds
today's top competitive offering on critical parameters, with 45% more cores,
60% more input/output capacity (I/O)2, and 122% more memory
bandwidth.

“Dropbox is currently
evaluating AMD EPYC CPUs in-house, and we are impressed with the initial
performance we see across workloads in single-socket configurations,” said Akhil
Gupta, vice president of infrastructure at Dropbox. “The combination of core
performance, memory bandwidth, and I/O support make EPYC a unique offering. We
look forward to continuing to evaluate EPYC as an option for our
infrastructure.”

EPYC Features

·A highly scalable, 32-core System-on-a-chip (SoC) design, with
support for two high-performance threads per core

·Industry-leading memory bandwidth, with 8 channels of memory per
EPYC device3. In a dual-socket server, support for up to 32 DIMMS of DDR4 on 16
memory channels, delivering up to 4 terabytes of total memory capacity

·Infinity Fabric coherent interconnect for two EPYC CPUs in a
dual-socket system

·Dedicated security hardware

“Today’s
single-socket server offerings push buyers toward purchasing a more expensive
two-socket server just to get the memory bandwidth and I/O they need to support
the compute performance of the cores,” said Matthew Eastwood, senior vice
president, IDC. “There are no fully-featured, high-performance server
processors available today in a single-socket configuration. EPYC changes that
dynamic by offering a single-processor solution that delivers the right-sized
number of high-performance cores, memory, and I/O for today’s workloads.”

CSS Corp,a
leading IT Services and Technology Support company, today announced the launch
of its‘Earn As You Learn’
program- a specialized
M.Tech Work Integrated Learning Program, in association with BITS Pilani. The
program is 100% sponsored by CSS Corp, and will help its employees in India to
acquire knowledge and skills required for excelling in their careers with the
added advantage of gaining a top-notch M.Tech. degree in Software Engineering
from one of India’s most prestigious universities.

The M.Tech Work Integrated Learning
Program will be open to all CSS Corp employees, who meet the qualifying
criteria, and have completed a minimum tenure of 6 months with the
organization. The program offers aunique opportunity to employees to enhance their
academic qualifications while gaining significant professional experience. The
4-yearIntegrated Learning
Program is designed to create a pool of industry-ready technology
professionals.

Speaking about the association,Manish Tandon, Chief Executive
Officer, CSS Corpsaid, “CSS
Corp believes in investing in its people, their learning and their development.
Our M.Tech Work Integrated Learning Program for B.Sc. / BCA Graduates from BITS
Pilani is testimony to this. As a new-age company, we are strongly focused on
innovation. Our clients are among the world’s top technology companies and
there are interesting shifts happening in their ecosystem. Through this
initiative, we see a great opportunity to bring our employees up to speed with
the latest technologies. This would have a positive cascading effect on the
services we can deliver to our clients.”

“With our rich legacy of expert innovation and employee development track
record, we are committed to provide challenging career opportunities for high
performing employees in the technology space. We are confident that this
program in association with BITS Pilani, will set new precedents in learning
and development in the Indian technology space.” saidDavid Raj, EVP and Chief HR Officer at CSS Corp.

“Work integrated learning has been
a core element of the educational philosophy at BITS Pilani, and it is our firm
belief that life-long learning is key to achieving professional success and
organizational development. We believe that organizations such as CSS Corp,
which provide opportunities to their employees to enhance their academic
qualifications and technical skills while gaining significant professional
experience, will remain prepared to tackle business challenges of the future.”
said Prof. G. Sundar
(Director - Off Campus Programmes and Industry Engagement, BITS Pilani)

As a part of the program, the first set of
B.Sc. and BCA graduates will be joining in May 2017. Initially, candidates will
undergo 60 days of CSS Corp’s intensive New Hire Training. On successful
completion of the course, successful candidates will get deployed in various
projects. At the end of 6 months, all employees who have qualified from this
lot, will join the BITS M.Tech program which will commence in Jan/Feb
2018. Once these candidates meet the relevant performance criteria,
both in CSS Corp and in the M. Tech program, they will earn their final degree
from BITS Pilani.

At
a time when Indian IT companies are going ahead with layoffs, Tata Consultancy
Services (TCS) is expanding its presence in the tech hub. The company is adding
3.75 lakh sq feet office space to seat 4,000 IT professionals by signing a deal
with city-based Brigade Enterprises.

In a statement issued here on Tuesday, Brigade Enterprises
CMD M R Jaishankar stated that the company is pleased to start a strategic
relationship with TCS and look forward to growing Brigade business to new
heights in the years to come.

“Brigade Bhuwalka Icon, located on Whitefield main road, is
another jewel in our crown of quality commercial developments. We have entered
into agreement with TCS to offer 3.75 lakh sq feet area,” he said.

Brigade has a large strategic portfolio in corporate real
estate of developing 10 million sq feet in addition to its operating portfolio
of 6 million sq feet. Its under development projects include a 3.3 million sq
feet of IT/ ITeS SEZ Tech Park called Brigade Tech Gardens in Brookfields.

Brigade Group has licences to develop World Trade Centres in
Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. World Trade
Centres are already operational in Bengaluru and Kochi.

The
Centre on Tuesday said that the impact of global cyber attack has been limited
to five or six isolated instances so far and there are no reports of any
substantial disruption to India’s IT backbone.

CERT-In,
the government’s cyber security arm, has maintained that apart from five or six
isolated instances, there are no reports of a substantial scale to indicate
that Indian systems have been hit.Few computers in Andhra Pradesh Police, some panchayats in
Kerala and West Bengal Electricity Board and two more places, a few systems
were affected due to cyber attack, she said.